


The Sound of His Voice

by megolas



Category: The Sandman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-23
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:08:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megolas/pseuds/megolas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She will not be buried at Wych Cross, regardless of whether she dies in three days or more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sound of His Voice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kittydesade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/gifts).



> Written for Yuletide '06 for KittydeSade

The chair sways like a boat on sea and Johanna’s fingers tighten on the arms as the girl moves her between rooms. She does not fear this sea and she knows that she will not die on it because she still has three days till her 99th birthday.

The girl chatters on about the party planned to celebrate the event as she wheels Johanna though the halls, the faces of long gone Constantines watching as they go. Johanna does not pay her much more attention; her family’s wishes and plans are of no matter to her. Johanna has made her own arrangements and bargains, although she knows that she will only see if one of them comes through in the end, and damn all their wishes.

She will not be buried at Wych Cross, regardless of whether she dies in three days or more.

She can still hear Mad Hettie’s voice – “I know all about you and the little Corsican, Johanna Constantine” – and she’s kept her end of the bargain, stayed out of the business of Hettie and hers. She’ll find out soon if Hettie has kept her end, if the offer of ninety-nine years holds true.

The girl leaves her by the window; the sun is warm though the glass and Johanna closes her eyes. After all, she’s not sleeping; she’s merely resting her eyes. Still keeping her wits about her even now.

Johanna sleeps.

***

She was young and she was foolish. The rumours swirled though the circles she moved in, that the Devil and the Wandering Jew met once a century in a tavern in London and the details of their next meeting was sewn in the shirt of a man. She killed the owner of the shirt herself, nothing messy, nothing that might destroy or obscure the information she needed. Just a drink in a bar and a little powder and he was dead before the toast was finished.

That was two years before the next meeting and she used that time wisely. Her plans were set and when the day of the meeting dawned, Johanna knew she was only hours away from a source of knowledge that others had killed for and failed to reach.

In the end she did not gain the knowledge she sought, but the effects of that meeting would shape the remainder of her life.

***

Johanna wakes with a start. It is the morning before her 99th birthday and like she has done for almost a century, she wakes with the sun. She saw Orpheus in her dreams again; his song grows stronger on the edges of her mind. She wonders if the Lord Morpheus will retain his end of her arrangement. She hasn’t seen him in the flesh since he came to Wych Cross for the first and final time, five years after he left her with her ghosts in the tavern in London.

She undertook his mission and she rescued Orpheus from Robespierre and returned him to the Island of Naxos, the care of the monks and the sound of the sea that he loved so much.

Her boon is her own to set and she has never regretted it. She travelled the world after that but she never did set foot on Naxos again. But that is where she will be buried, one of her many arrangements over the years, and not in the plot at Wych Cross.

The house bustles with people, chairs are carried from room to room and Johanna ignores it all, she waves away the girl’s attempts to move her from her room and just sits basking in the sun.

Johanna remembers.

***

“Lady Constantine.”

“Lord Morpheus.”

Johanna knows without looking that she is dressed in her finery. Morpheus has not changed since she last saw him and they are standing in a high ceiling’d room with a table set for two. Morpheus gestures and they take their seats.

“Tea?”

Johanna nods and the cup is set before her.

Morpheus takes the offered cup, places it on the table and watches her over his crossed fingers.

“Have you decided on your boon, milady?”

Johanna nods, wrapping her fingers around the fine bone china. “I have, sir. I wish to hear Orpheus sing before I die, whenever that may be.”

“Only that?”

“Yes. As you yourself have said, I do not lack for property or gold, and this is something that falls within your power to give, does it not?”

Morpheus nods. “Then it shall be granted.”

Johanna wakes to the sunrise in Wych Cross with a smile on her face.

***

Johanna is sleeping when the girl comes to fetch her. She does not want to go down to the party and she does not want to celebrate. The girl prattles on and Johanna is curt; she may be elderly but she is not a child and will not tolerate being treated like one.

She sinks back towards sleep, or she thinks she does, Orpheus’ song is on the edges of her mind again, like so many dreams before and she smiles. It grows louder as the girl wheels her towards the party and Johanna starts, forcing the girl to stop at the window. The sun is setting and Orpheus’ voice is all around her – he sings of hope and freedom. Of liberty and love.

Johanna finds her fingers are gripping the edge of the chair and she is standing slowly from the chair, something she has not done in at least five years. She is dimly aware of the girl in the background begging her not to exert herself. Orpheus’ voice reaches a crescendo and she gasps out as she falls into the sound.

***

“Lady Constantine?” The girl in front of her is pale and clothed in black, but she has the most beautiful smile.

Johanna curtsies. “Lady Death.”

Death holds out her hand and Johanna takes it. She can smell the sea off the island of Naxos and Orpheus’ song fades into the sound of wings.


End file.
